My Kind of Crazy
by hellohiheyx3
Summary: It's her sophomore year at University, and nothing is going the way Casey planned it. Between her studies, her boyfriend, and the most annoying roommate of all time, Casey often feels like the stress of it all is going to eat her out alive. She finds her only saving grace in the last person she ever expected: Derek Venturi.
1. Chapter 1

Casey sat at the small desk in her dorm tapping away on her computer keys. She had 2 different textbooks laying open next to her that she continued to glance back at as she wrote. She was working on a 5 page paper that was due at noon the next day. She sighed as she dared to take the quickest of breaks to look down at the time. 4:13am. Casey sighed and her cheeks puffed out as she did.

Procrastination. It's something that never affected Casey before. Ask anybody who knew Casey before she started university and they'll tell you that she was the epitome of the perfect student. She was the kind of girl to get homework done 3 weeks before it was due and pursue every extra credit assignment offered by her teachers. Not because she ever needed the extra credit, but because she really enjoyed school that much. She thought University would be the same. Unfortunately, University changed all that. She was at the start of her sophomore year, double majoring in Political Science and Communications with a concentration in Journalism. The workload just seemed to get harder as the semesters went on. These days, she did things like sitting at her desk at 4am relentlessly typing away and praying she'd be able to get at least an hour of sleep before her first class of the day. It's not like she was procrastinating just for the fun of it – in fact, nothing stressed Casey out more. There was just so much on her plate these days that it was hard to do anything until the last possible minute. She hated the fact that things had to be this way.

She took a deep breath as she finally got to the last page a few hours later. And an even deeper sigh of relief as she typed out the very last sentence and proceeded to email it to her professor.

"Done." She whispered as she closed her computer and turned off the small lamp on the desk. She fumbled to her bed in the dark and finally closed her eyes.

She started to drift into sleep, but was interrupted only minutes later by her roommate's alarm. She groaned and pulled the covers over her head, but the alarm wouldn't stop. She threw the covers off and gave her roommate an evil glare. But she didn't even move. She just… laid there. This happened every morning. The first morning this happened, Casey was genuinely worried that she might have been dead. It took at least 3 alarms for her to wake up every morning.

Casey's roommate was Jordan Floyd. She was a psychology major who scheduled her classes at 8am every morning even though she clearly had trouble waking up. As hard as Casey tried, she would never be able to understand why. Casey tried very hard to get along with Jordan, but to her, the girl was unrelentingly annoying.

Casey jumped out of the bed in frustration and picked up her phone from the bedside table. She then grabbed her bag that laid next to the door and made sure to slam it as hard as she could as she left.

She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do next. She was tired. She hadn't slept at all that night and it was now 7am. Her first class started at 10:30am. What was she supposed to do until then?

She walked down the hallway towards the elevator and looked at her phone. There were 2 texts waiting for her to answer. One was from Derek, her step-brother, and the other was from her boyfriend, Eric.

These texts were received much earlier in the night, but Casey purposefully ignored both of them in order to get her paper done. She opened the text from Derek first.

" _Can u help me with this paper? I have no idea what I'm doing."_

Casey smiled a bit as she opened the textbox to reply.

" _What are you doing later? I can meet you tonight to figure it out."_

Derek and Casey's relationship is another thing that has changed quite a bit since starting University. Derek became Casey's step-brother when they were both 15. With that being said, high school was a trying time for both of them – they constantly argued and Derek seemed to genuinely enjoy getting under Casey's skin. If you told Casey they would be going to the same University and would even enjoy hanging out quite a bit in their free time, Casey would've never stopped laughing. And yet, that's exactly how things were now. That's not to say that Derek didn't still mess with Casey – this is something he might always do, and Casey came to that understanding a long time ago. Casey mostly enjoyed hanging out with him because she always felt a little less homesick when she was with him. He was the only person that really knew the Casey that existed before University; being around Derek was like holding on to the girl that she used be.

She hit the send button and went to read the text from her boyfriend.

" _I know you're busy working on your paper rn but what are you doing tmrw night? Can we go see a movie or something? I miss you…"_

Casey tilted her head slightly as she texted him back. " _I miss you too, Eric_." She hesitated before continuing, because she wasn't sure what she was supposed to say next. She wished she'd opened his text first, because she just told Derek she'd meet him that night. She thought for a moment, and then texted back, _"We can hang out later tonight after I help Derek with his paper. I'll let you know after I talk to him, k? Love you."_

Finally, she put her phone in her pocket and hit the button down for the elevator; it opened almost immediately. Not really sure where she was going but knowing she had to get out of this building, she rode the elevator down to the first floor.

After aimlessly walking around campus, she quickly found herself at her favorite coffee shop. They had just opened, so there were only a few people there.

She ordered coffee and switched from using her phone and reading the book she kept in her bag throughout the rest of her time there. In that time, Eric had replied back to her text, saying that he loved her and was excited to see her later that night.

The rest of the day drug on. She tried as hard as she could to be attentive in class, but it was so hard when she was working on zero hours of sleep. Derek texted her at 1, asking if she could meet her in his dorm at 6pm. She agreed, although she did contemplate asking him if they could reschedule. In the end, she decided against it, knowing that Derek wouldn't have asked for her help if it wasn't needed.

Her last class of the day was at 4:30, so that gave her just enough time to get to her dorm and have a quick minute to herself. When it was finally time to go, she picked up her bag once more and headed off to Derek's dorm.

Derek's roommate, Johnathan, answered the door. Jonathan and Derek had been friends and roommates since the first semester of freshman year, and they also played together on the school's hockey team.

"Oh, hey Casey." He said, stepping to the side and opening the door wider so she could come in.

"Hey, Johnathan. How are you?" Casey asked, beginning to yawn as she set her bag down next to Derek, who was sitting at his desk wearing headphones. This made Derek look up, only just noticing she was here.

"Good, I was actually just getting ready to go hang out with my girlfriend. Do you guys wanna come?"

Casey was quick to answer before Derek could rope her into anything. "No. I'm actually here to help Derek with his paper."

Derek laughed as he took his headphones off and swiveled around in his chair to look at the two of them. "Don't listen to her man, she just doesn't like you."

" _Der-ek_!" Casey yelled as she went to pick a pillow off of Derek's unmade bed to throw at him. He dodged the pillow and picked it up off the floor to throw it back at her, laughing. Casey caught the pillow and thumped down on Derek's bed and sat with the pillow in her lap, leaning her back against the wall.

"Alright-y then." Jonathan said, obviously feeling a bit awkward, though Casey wasn't sure why. "I'll see you guys later." He said, grabbing his jacket and walking out the door.

Casey waited for Johnathan to leave before she started talking. "Alright Derek, talk to me about your paper."

Derek read her the instructions given by the professor for the paper, while Casey nodded her head and tried to listen. He stared at his computer as he went on to specifically state what about the assignment confused him. After a while, he turned to look at Casey to see what she had to say, but she clearly wasn't paying attention. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth was slightly open. The dorm was quiet, and Derek could hear nothing but her rhythmic breathing.

If Derek were younger, he would have put whipped cream in her hand and scratched her nose with a feather, or put her hand in cold water. But now, as he looked at Casey, he couldn't do anything but stare at her, despite himself. He got up and took the blanket that lay at her feet and put it over her, then walked back towards the swivel chair at his desk.

Watching her, he smiled a smile so small that if you weren't paying attention, you wouldn't have seen it at all.


	2. Chapter 2

"What's this?" Jonathan asked, nodding his head towards Casey as he took his key out of the lock.

Derek looked up from his computer, where he had been all night desperately trying to figure out his paper. "She fell asleep."

Casey stretched out a bit on the bed and pulled the blanket closer to her chest.

"Okay," Johnathan said with a bit of an uncomfortable chuckle as fell onto his own bed and tightly hugged his pillow. "Don't you think that you should wake her though? It's getting pretty late."

Derek looked at the time on his laptop: 11:32pm. He shrugged at Johnathan, but knew he was probably right. From his chair, he could reach the end of the blanket and pulled it from her body. She furrowed her brows and pulled her legs up towards her chest. Derek sighed deeply and got up too quickly from his chair so that it would squeak.

Jonathan looked at him, confused. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to wake her up." Derek replied, as though it were obvious.

"Oh, is that what's happening right now?" Johnathan asked, his voice thick with sarcasm.

Derek, however, didn't get a chance to reply, as Casey was finally beginning to open her eyes.

She yawned loudly and looked up at the two of them. First, at Johnathan who sat directly in front of her in his own bed, and then at Derek, who stood at the end of the bed near his desk.

"Did I fall asleep?" She asked, sitting up and stretching her arms out in front of her.

"Yep." Derek replied casually.

She sat there for a moment and reached for her phone, which sat right next to her in the bed. "Oh no. Did I fall asleep?" She asked louder this time.

Derek furrowed his brows at her. "Um. Yes?"

"Noooooo no no no no no no no"

Derek laughed a little this time. "You okay Space Case?"'

"De-rek! Why didn't you wake me?" Casey screamed as she grabbed her phone and jumped off the bed.

"Uh. Isn't that what I was trying to do _just_ now?"

Casey threw her arms up in the air and then reached for the door handle. "I've been here for hours, Derek! You shouldn't have let me fall asleep at all! I'm supposed to be with Eric right now. He's sent me a million texts already."

Derek rolled his eyes at the mention of Eric. "Yeah, well, I didn't realize I was supposed to be your guardian."

Casey flung the door open and ran down the hall towards the stairs. Thank God Derek lived on the 2nd floor. She only wished Derek lived in the same dorm as Eric, so she wouldn't have to run all the way across campus at this time of night.

But Casey wasn't really worried about that right now. She was only worried about making sure Eric knew she didn't blow him off. She had been canceling plans with him so often that it only made sense that he was a little upset. She was counting on tonight to make all of that up to him.

Casey ran to Eric's dorm, stopping to catch her breath once she finally made it there. Walking in, she had to stop and show her ID at the front desk to prove she was a student. Once she did this, she walked towards the elevator and took her phone out.

" _Hey baby, what time are you getting here again? I thought you were supposed to be here by now but I guess I must have confused the time. I'll see you when you get here. I love you."_

" _Okay.. what's going on?"_

" _Should I be worried?"_

" _My roommate told me that he saw Johnathan tonight and he said you're still with Derek. Why aren't you here with me?"_

" _Whatever, Casey. This is complete bs and you KNOW it."_

" _If this is the way you want it to be then fine."_

While reading these messages, Casey had reached Eric's dorm on the 10th floor. His room was relatively close to the elevator, and as she walked towards it, she ran through a list of apologies in her mind. However, nothing she came up with seemed to be good enough.

Casey could hear loud music blaring through the hall, and as she got closer to Eric's door, she realized it was coming from in there. Confused, she took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

Nothing happened.

She knocked again, harder this time.

This time, the music stopped. She heard a loud fumble from the room as though somebody had just fallen. Then, the door jerked open. Eric stood there in nothing but a pair of red boxers, holding a red solo cup.

"Casey?"

He said her name as though it were a question. As if she were the last person he ever expected to be standing at his door.

Casey began to walk into his room and started to apologize, but she was stopped.

"Um. Now's not, um – now's not the best time, Casey." He said, putting his hand on her stomach to prevent her from walking any further.

Casey furrowed her eyebrows and laughed a bit, despite herself. "Excuse me?"

Eric took a deep breath, and it was clear he was trying to think of what to say next.

Casey stopped. "Why don't you want me to come into the room, Eric?"

He just looked at her, saying nothing.

After a moment of unrelenting silence, Casey pushed past him and opened the door.

She had no way of preparing herself for what she saw next.

The first thing she saw was the long blonde hair. It was attached to the body that was wearing only a black bra and underwear. She was in the process of picking up her clothes from the floor.

"He didn't tell me he had a girlfriend. I am _so_ sorry" The girl said as tears began to form in Casey's eyes.

The girl put her pants back on, and Casey turned to look at Eric. He was looking at the floor.

"I can't believe you." Casey managed to say through the tears, and ran out the door before he had a chance to reply.

She couldn't imagine waiting for the elevator, so she took all 10 flights of stairs down to the bottom. Once she got there, she was dialing his number before she even realized what she was doing.

"Hey Space Case. I thought you were mad at me."

"Derek." Casey sobbed into the phone. Hearing this, Derek's entire tone changed.

"Woah, what's wrong?"

"I'm sorry – I just – Eric.. and another girl."

Derek didn't need to hear anything else. "I'll be right there."


	3. Chapter 3

_"Please let me explain, you don't understand."_

 _"I need you to understand, Casey."_

 _"I love you…"_

 _"I need you, please don't do this."_

 _"Please just talk to me."_

These are the texts Casey read when she woke up and looked at her phone the next morning. There were 10 more that she would have had to scroll up in order to read, but she didn't bother. Still, her fingers momentarily hovered over the text box – what would she even say? It's not like she could say it was okay – nothing about this was okay. With that, she put her phone back down and sat up a bit. She took a quick glimpse over at Derek, who was sleeping on the floor next to her. Casey found it uncharacteristically kind of him to let her sleep in his bed, but in hindsight, she was an absolute mess.

When Derek went to get her the night before, Casey was sitting on the sidewalk outside of Eric's dorm. She had to physically restrain Derek from going upstairs to fight Eric. The kid sitting at the front desk eventually came outside to tell them he was going to call security if they didn't leave soon.

When they finally got back to Derek's dorm, he and Jonathan spent the night comforting Casey the only way they knew how: trash-talking Eric. Casey would be lying if she said it didn't make her feel better; she spent the night going back and forth between laughing and crying her eyes out. She wasn't sure when she fell asleep – the night felt like a complete blur. She may as well have been the drunk one.

But she wasn't. Eric was.

Casey lifted herself up from the bed once more to look at Derek. He was sleeping on his stomach, with a single pillow and a light bedsheet for cover. Looking at him, Casey began to feel guilty. She suddenly wished she'd gone back to her own room the night before.

Gathering all the strength she could muster, Casey jumped off the bed and bent down towards Derek, nudging him slightly.

"Derek?"

Derek moaned, and although he didn't say it, Casey knew he was asking what she wanted.

"I'm leaving now," She whispered. "You can have your bed back."

As Casey got up, Derek began to slowly open his eyes. He watched through squinted vision as she grabbed her bag. She stopped just before the door and pulled the hairband from her wrist and quickly wrapped her hair in a tight bun. Derek sighed deeply and closed his eyes once more as Casey closed the door behind her.

After leaving Derek's dorm, Casey thought very seriously about going straight back to her own dorm and staying in bed for the rest of the day. But Casey knew that word would somehow get back to Eric that she was miserable – and she refused to let him win like that.

So, she went on with her day the best she could. She only had two classes that day: one at 10am and one more at 1pm. That meant she had about a 2 hour break before her second class. She got out of her first class at 11, and decided to go get lunch in the cafeteria to try and kill time. She brought her laptop with her so that she could study – really so that she could do anything to get her mind off of Eric.

However, before she could even open her laptop, she heard somebody clear their throat next to her.

Casey closed her eyes. She knew who it was. "Eric. Go away."

"Casey.." He pleaded, and you could hear the strain in his voice.

"Go away." She repeated, still not opening her eyes.

"I just want to talk."

"Well I don't think I want to talk to you, Eric." Casey replied, not missing a beat. Then, she opened her eyes and looked up at Eric. "Please leave me alone."

"But Casey," he said, crouching down so that he was eye-level with her. "I love you."

Hearing this, tears began to well in Casey's eyes. Eric began to reach his hand up to caress Casey's face, but he was stopped.

"Is there a problem here?"

Derek was standing behind Eric, with his arms crossed over his chest. Casey had never been so happy to see Derek Venturi.

Eric stood up and turned to face Derek. " _Of course!_ I should've known you'd show up" He said, throwing his hands into the air.

Derek took a step closer. "She doesn't want to talk to you, Eric."

"She can make that decision on her own, Venturi."

Derek laughed probably a little too loud, "Are you deaf? She literally said 'Leave me alone.'"

As the two of them began to yell, Casey could see that this was going too far. The previously loud cafeteria was quiet but for the two of them. "Guys." Casey said, standing up and getting in between the two of them. She put her hand on Derek's chest and lightly pushed him back. "Please."

Eric looked Derek up and down and rolled his eyes, taking a few steps back. "Fine, Casey. He's clearly who you want to be with, anyway"

Casey was lost as she watched him walk away. "What?"

 **Author's Note:**

Please forgive me for taking so long to post this! I have no intentions of abandoning this story, so rest assured that it will be completed. Only thing is, I'm in University myself, so free time can be hard to come by. It won't take this long to post the next chapter though, promise! Thank you all for all of the love and support you've already shown for the previous chapters!


	4. Chapter 4

Derek shook his head as he watched Eric walk away.

"I'm telling you, he's crazy." Derek said, turning back to face Casey. "I mean it, Case, he should be put away."

Casey gave Derek a small smile and sat back down, placing her head in her hands. She then mumbled something that Derek couldn't quite hear, and Derek sat beside her, pulling her hands from her face.

Casey was trying not to cry, but could feel the tears slowly forming in her eyes. Derek looked around at the people surrounding them in the cafeteria. People were growing louder, as the silence from the scene between them began to subside.

Derek furrowed his eyebrows at Casey, as he noticed her eyes becoming redder. He knew she was upset, but he didn't know what to do. When it came to dealing with emotions, Derek just never knew how he was supposed to react.

"Um." He said, as he looked at her.

"I'll be okay." Casey said, clearly not okay at all, but trying to be.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. It was so obvious he wasn't sure how he hadn't already thought of it. This would make things better.

"Come with me." He said, standing up.

"What?"

"Just get your stuff, let's go."

They walked silently back to Derek's dorm. Once there, Derek pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and handed the phone to Casey. Casey looked at him with confusion as she took the phone from his hands.

Casey put the phone to her ear and waited. Though, she wasn't quite sure what she was waiting for. It had just occurred to her that she could look at the name on the caller id when the person on the other end answered.

"Derek?" Nora McDonald answered.

"Oh my god, mom." Casey went to Derek's bed and sat down as the flood gates in her eyes finally began to open. Derek knew Casey needed to be alone for this, so he walked out into the hallway, and closed the door behind him.

He wished he had used Casey's phone to call Nora, because he was now left standing in the middle of the hall without a phone or anything to do. He leaned his back on the wall next to the door and slumped to the floor.

He'd never seen Casey like this. He knew she was having a hard time juggling the school load, but he was always impressed with the composure she always appeared to have. He didn't know what to do.

30 minutes later, Derek sat in the same spot in the hall, snoring slightly. Casey smiled and kicked him lightly with her foot.

He moaned and opened his eyes, looking up at Casey. Her eyes were red and her mascara was slightly smeared along the bottom of her eye. Somehow, she looked even worse than she had before.

"Did it not work?" Derek said, as he stood up, rubbing his eyes.

Casey smiled at him. "Thank you for being there for me."

Derek breathed heavily as he walked back into his dorm, with Casey following behind him.

"I've just never seen you like this before. I don't think I like it." He said, sitting on the side of his bed.

Casey furrowed her eyebrows at him. She was clearly thinking hard about something, though Derek couldn't guess what.

"What?"

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Casey asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I just mean lately you've been doing things that just aren't…" She stopped for a minute, trying to think of the right word. "…you. You've been really sweet."

"I don't know, Casey." Derek said, standing up from the bed, clearly frustrated. "I don't know what you mean."

For a minute, there was silence as the two of them did nothing but stare at one another. Casey allowed a tear to fall from her eyes, and stepped forward, never taking her eyes off of Derek's.

Then, she did something Derek never could have expected. She stood on her tip toes and wrapped her arms around Derek's neck. Derek wanted to ask, "What are you doing?" but couldn't find the words. She slowly closed her eyes, and allowed her lips to be connected to his.


End file.
